A look at Boston’s thinner-than-normal payroll

Friday

Nov 2, 2012 at 5:57 PM

A team that had an Opening Day payroll of more than $170 million a year ago enters the offseason with a payroll of barely $85 million.

Everyone knows the Red Sox have money to spend. Itís almost staggering, however, how much they have to spend. A team that had an Opening Day payroll of more than $170 million a year ago enters the offseason with a payroll of barely $85 million.

If John Henry permits Ben Cherington to spend up to the competitive-balance-tax threshold of $178 million ó and thereís no reason he should not do so ó the Red Sox have more than $90 million to spend to reinforce their roster for the 2013 season.

The above figures do not include free agents David Ortiz or Cody Ross, but they do include estimated salaries for arbitration-eligible players such as Jacoby Ellsbury or Andrew Bailey, courtesy of MLBTradeRumors.com. All salary figures come from the indispensable Cotís Baseball Contracts.

Pitchers (23)

John Lackey, $15.95 million

Jon Lester, $11.63

Clay Buchholz, $5.75

Andrew Bailey, $3.9

Craig Breslow, $2.40*

Alfredo Aceves, $2.60*

Daniel Bard, $1.60*

Andrew Miller, $1.40*

Franklin Morales, $1.40*

Rich Hill, $1.1*

Junichi Tazawa, $0.88**

Scott Atchison, $0.80*

Pedro Beato, $0.49

Drake Britton, $0.49

Chris Carpenter, $0.49

David Carpenter, $0.49

Rubby De La Rosa, $0.49

Felix Doubront, $0.49

Mark Melancon, $0.49

Clayton Mortensen, $0.49

Stolmy Pimentel, $0.49

Sandy Rosario, $0.49

Zach Stewart, $0.49

Total: $54.8 million

Catchers (2)

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, $3.9 million*

Ryan Lavarnway, $0.49

Total: $4.39 million

Infielders (8)

Dustin Pedroia, $10.25 million

Jose Iglesias, $2.06

Pedro Ciriaco, $0.49

Ivan DeJesus Jr.: $0.49

Mauro Gomez, $0.49

Will Middlebrooks, $0.49

Jerry Sands, $0.49

Danny Valencia, $0.49

Total: $15.25 million

Outfielders (4)

Jacoby Ellsbury, $8.1 million*

Ryan Sweeney, $1.8*

Ryan Kalish, $0.49

Daniel Nava, $0.49

Total: $10.88 million

*Estimates of salaries obtained through arbitration

**Tazawa is not yet arbitration-eligible and thus can have his salary assigned by the team; however, his salary cannot be cut more than 20 percent from his previous salary, which was valued at $1.1 million for luxury-tax purposes.